A Hop and a Skip Away
by One of Three
Summary: One Sunday morning, one toad, one Gryffindor Quidditch team, and one Weasley of the female variety. Add in some playful and inappropriate anecdotes, and we've got ourselves a story.


**A Hop and Skip Away**

_**Summary:**__ One Sunday morning, one toad, one Gryffindor Quidditch team, and one Weasley of the female variety. Add in some playful and inappropriate anecdotes, and we've got ourselves a story._

_**Author's Note:**_ This ficlet takes place during Ginny's 7th year. After the defeat of Moldywart, sixth years return to Hogwarts for the next year in formation, alongside the past year's seventh years that hadn't really finished their schooling (what with a war going on and all…).

* * *

Panning the Quidditch pitch at this early Sunday morning Gryffindor team practice, one would not notice anything amiss or awry. Looking a little more closely, however, one would find that a white and green spotted toad was lurking about, hopping this way and that rather nonchalantly.

To the left he went, looking up at the sky, taking in Ronald Weasley's Double Eight Loop, protecting the three goal posts simultaneously. A difficult maneuver, but one the youngest male Weasley had mastered as an art. This move had not yet been unleashed on the Hogwarts school teams, but would soon be revealed at Gryffindor's up and coming match against the Slytherins.

To the right he went, focusing on the team Chasers, Dean Thomas, Ginevra Weasley and Demelza Robins, who were perfecting a Hawkshead Attacking Formation to be paired with a Porskof Ploy. Ginny positioned herself center and slightly ahead of her fellow Chasers, and then made as if to dart upwards, dropping the quaffle to Dean in the process. In use in a match, this move would draw an opposing team's Chaser upward with her feigning move, and leave her fellow Chaser open to bring the quaffle to a goal. Genius, according to Ronald Bilius Weasley, who strategized the ploy for his captain, Harry James Potter.

While the Keepers were keeping and the Chasers were chasing, our war hero, one Harry Potter, was practicing with his snitch. Up it went and down it flew, and around it flittered, and way down it soared, close to the ground, and remarkably close to the white and green spotted toad playing audience to the team's practice.

"Well that's odd." Harry said to nobody in particular. "Oi" he screamed in the general direction of his teammates. "We've got a runaway toad here, getting in the way of my snitch!"

Ginny rolled her eyes and swooped down to where Harry sat perched on his broom close to the ground, pointing at the offending amphibian.

"S'alright, lemme take a gander, Harry." Harry moved aside, no questions asked, keeping a short distance from the redheaded girl. They had not yet settled their differences after their hiatus as a romantic couple, and he felt rather uncomfortable around the pretty lass.

He watched as the toad seemed to squint its eyes at the looming figure of female Weasley closing in on it. Chuckling, Potter deemed the toad rather odd, and then hollered back up to his team to get back to practice and ignore the creature. He also ignored Ginny, letting her take care of the toad.

"Oh, I'll take this toad to professor Slughorn! Maybe he could use a live one for a potion of some sort, don't you think?" Ginny said, rather mischievously while looking at the amphibian now squirming in her grasp. Without waiting for much of a response from her captain, she withdrew her wand from its holster at her arm and conjured a small jar for the toad. Placing it inside, she peered inquiringly through the glass, with a calculated look in her eyes.

Jar in tow, broom banished to its rightful place in the broom shed, and gear removed, Ginny walked purposefully across the field and out of range of her fellow Gryffindors. Once beyond the pitch, headed southward on the grounds, Ginny arrived at her real destination- a boulder by the lake. Setting down her bag and the jar of toad in front of her on the smooth surface of the boulder, Ginny whipped out her wand, cast a vanishing spell on the jar, and quickly followed that with a "Finite Incantatum." As expected, the toad writhed and squirmed and slowly returned to its proper shape- that of one Draco Malfoy.

"Oh that's rich!" Ginny giggled, "I knew you were no toad, but you're… You're you!"

Guffawing and clutching at her stomach from the reverie, Ginny continued to tease the scowl-faced boy. "Your Animagus form is a toad! Who would have ever thought! Talk about being a slimy git…"

Draco pounced on the impish girl. "How dare you mock me?" he growled.

Ginny stiffened under his grip and looked down awkwardly. Clearing her throat, she gestured with her chin at the offending scene in front of her. "Erm have you noticed a draft, by any chance?"

Malfoy quickly jumped up and attempted to cover his private parts with his hands, with a scandalized look on his face instead of his trademark smirk. "Yeah… about that…"

Ginny, deciding to be a good Hogwarts citizen, remedied the situation with a swish and flick of her wand and a conjuring spell, producing a large cloak for the Malfoy boy to wrap around his naked body.

"You better not have looked, She-Weasel!"

"Oh, you're very welcome dear Malfoy, it was nothing," She curtly replied, noting that he had not thanked her for her help.

"And what were you doing on the pitch this morning? Get lost on your morning hop-around?"

Malfoy stood there, arms wrapped tightly around his body, covered by the large cloak. Not one word left his lips. Staring at her with a smirk to end all smirks, he simply glared daggers, hoping the girl would get the message.

Ginny simply stated, "It's alright with me if you get your toad jollies by watching teenage boys and girls get all hot and sweaty on the pitch. I won't judge," which did elicit a faint snort from the blond-haired boy in front of her.

"Oho, a noise from the Slytherin Prince! Not so stoic after all, hmm?"

"…Insufferable git."

"Is that really the best you can come up with, Malfoy? I do believe you're losing your touch."

Without waiting for another underdeveloped retort, Ginny conjured the poor boy a set of Hogwarts regulation trousers and shirt, replete with a tie and robe, in the appropriate house colors, of course.

Draco Malfoy stared at the girl, mouth open and eyes blinking in disbelief.

Laughing at the look she was being given, Ginny jibed, "That's number two, Ferret-Boy. What's the matter, Kneazle got your tongue?"

Now that he was fully clothed, Malfoy again pounced on the surprised Weasley, and pinned her to the flat surface of the boulder. "Not so cocky now, hmm?"

"Well, actually, you're the cocky one, Malfoy, seeing as you are of the male variety. Have you forgotten what was oh so visible mere moments ago?"

The blood rushed to his face, rather than another area, and Malfoy blushed a light pink in the cheeks and spluttered "I-Erm-What?"

Ginny simply pushed lightly at his chest as his grip loosened, and gave him a quick kiss on the nose and hopped away before he could react. "You're cute when you're confused, Malfoy. That's a good look for you."

With that, she hopped away, like a toad on a roundabout of the grounds, leaving Draco Malfoy quizzically gazing after her.


End file.
